Seems that I’m saying goodbye to a good friend today. He’s moved on to a better place. A place where he can be happy. At least, I hope that he’s happy. I lost what I considered a good friend today.

You see, my friend is getting married. I know what you’re thinking. You think that this is going to be about the woes of marriage and that I’m going to complain that I’ll never see him after the wedding. This is completely untrue. My friend decided that we could not be friends today.

This all started about a week ago. We were at a barbecue at another friend’s house. There was a good group of us there. Now, my friend’s fiancée had been spreading this story around to a few people about another friend of ours. Apparently, she had seen him at a place and it had looked like he had been up to no good while his girlfriend at home. So, she told my wife about this adding that she shouldn’t say anything about this to my friend’s girlfriend. Are you following all of this? Good.

Back to the get-together at my friend’s house. My wife decided to talk to this other friend who was supposedly not being faithful. Turns out that his side of the story is similar but told from his perspective is not dubious at all. So, a rumour has been quelled. And my wife was sure not to implicate anyone about from whom she heard the story.

Here’s where things get really difficult. Since my wife was told not to say anything, apparently she committed the ultimate sin by having a sensible conversation about what was seen instead of letting a rumour make its way around. I suppose there are two sides to this discussion but that would only be true if there was an actual discussion.

My friend’s fiancée decided that she was just so incredibly angry with my wife that she would write a Facebook status update regarding what my wife had done. Why do this? Because this is the most mature thing that she could come up with. Now, we’re not talking about a teenager here. We’re talking about a grown woman in her thirties. A woman that has a white collar job. A grown woman that chose to show her frustration to my wife on Facebook. Can you see where this is going?

So, my wife, wanting to resolve this like a normal person, decided to try to call her. Several times. For days. There was no answer at any time. Finally, my wife sees them in person at a park during lunch. She tries to apologize to my friend’s fiancée, however, she makes the huge mistake of explaining why she talked to my other friend about the situation. This is seen as making ridiculous excuses. In any case, the apology was not accepted well. In fact, it wasn’t accepted at all. My wife called me up on the verge of tears because of the mean things that this woman said to her.

It’s at this point that I decide that I’ve had enough. I know just how mean she can be and I’m not going to take somebody talking to my wife like that sitting down. I decided that after I got off work and had time to think things over that I would call my friend and explain that I couldn’t have his fiancée in my life. This isn’t the first time that she’s caused this sort of stress and then wouldn’t talk to us on the phone or in person. I had a similar episode happen to me on my own birthday. Yes, she decided to throw a hissy fit on my birthday.

My friend didn’t like the news but he said he could understand where I was coming from. He said I probably didn’t want to be in his wedding now and I had to regretfully agree that I could not be in his wedding ceremony since she would be a part of it. I don’t agree with the union and I would not be able to stand up there with him.

Meanwhile there is another Facebook status update that comes from his fiancée. This basically confirms that apologies are supposed to be heartfelt and not full of bullshit excuses. Well, I guess she is really letting us know how she feels with these Facebook updates. Of course, they don’t actually get to our Facebook walls if she removes both of us from both of their friends lists. I guess that was the final sign, right? That we were definitely not friends?

Well, just to be sure, I called my friend again. He was at work so I guess he couldn’t answer. I left him a message saying that I wanted to see how things were going and that I heard we weren’t friends. I got a phone call a little after nine in the evening. It was a pretty short conversation. Basically, he expressed that they are a package deal. I can’t be friends with him after saying that I don’t want anything to do with her.

I never asked for him to choose between her and me. I understood that I probably wouldn’t be hanging out with him much after this whole episode. But I didn’t expect for us to not be friends. But I guess that’s just the way life rolls.

Hopefully, they have a splendid life together. I wish them all the best and hope that everything works out the way that they want. It’s just become clear that my wife and I can not be around her. She’s caused us both too much pain and stress in our lives. I mean, preventing my ex-friend from showing up to my birthday was pretty rough last year. But I never held a grudge.

I just hope that my ex-friend doesn’t wake up on his wedding day and find that all of his friends have been driven away by her. I really hope that he can manage to hang on to the rest of his friendships because he’s really going to need them. They will be the balance that he will need to keep him grounded.

Goodbye.

You really must admire how dedicated the Premiere of Bermuda is when he makes a decision. I mean, he really sticks to his guns when he drops a load of money on advertising. Too bad he can’t stick to his guns when trying to retrieve a bloody performance bond.

If you haven’t read the paper yet today, let me recap it for you. It’s come to light that GlobalHue has settled a lawsuit quietly out of court because they owed somebody a bunch of money.

Court documents reportedly state GlobalHue “engaged in a conspiracy to cause Montemayor y Associados Inc. (the ‘agency’) to show a loss or, at least, no profit by denying Mr. and Mrs. Montemayor financial reports and by concealing assets and revenue and misstating expenses.

However, Dr. Brown is still very excited to be in business with these people. In fact, he’s praised their efforts in bringing a few people to the island through promotions on NESN.

I have (also) heard from our private sector partners up at Pompano.

They tell me they have booked a few guests as a result of seeing Bermuda Tourism ads on New England Sports Network. I couldn’t be more pleased with the feedback… our thanks to GlobalHue for landing this deal. It is a difference maker.

Please, somebody, tell me how much does an average guest spend on the island? Now, tell me if it makes up for the bloody $28 million that is being spent to bring a couple of people from New England to the Pompano Beach Club. Seriously. It’s costing us around $30 million in advertising to try to get people here. Now, I wouldn’t mind spending that much if our visitor numbers weren’t dropping through the floor.

Our new numbers are showing a 27% decrease in visitor numbers this quarter alone. So, clearly GlobalHue is doing its job and we should really give them more of a chance to show us how much more they can do. I don’t care about whether the owner is a friend of Dr. Brown or not. The numbers just don’t add up. If I gave a friend a bunch of money to do something, I would expect him to actually follow through and show me some results. Otherwise, I’ll be putting that contract up for a bid to see if it’s worth keeping that friend on board. This is just smart business.

I might be jumping over the line here but did any of the members of the PLP run a successful business before they got into politics other than Zane? And no, I’m not pointing Zane out because he’s white. I’m pointing him out just because I know that he had a successful business before he became an MP.

There’s a lot to think about here, citizens. Starting thinking now. Not in a few years when an election is called. Keep track of how your tax dollars are being spent. Somebody’s pockets are being lined and they definitely aren’t mine or any other person who isn’t a close friend of the Brown administration.

I played some squash with my friend again yesterday. It was good fun. This time around, I actually did a little better than the first time. I didn’t tire out quite as quickly. I actually made some good shots. We had some good rallies. It was a fun time. I’m hoping that after a few more times out I’m able to be competent enough to win a couple of matches and make my mate break a sweat.

Now, the problem is that after I finished squash, I then went out sailing. We sailed all the way to Ferry Reach and back to RHADC. While it was great fun and I had a wonderful time, it was quite a bit of work too. So, all of the squash pain is even worse because of the amount of rope pulling, winch cranking, and generally running around I was doing on the boat.

I really should do all of these things on a Saturday so that I have Sunday to rest before work on Monday. That way I won’t feel like a great big bag of pain.

And thus it has come to pass that George Orwell’s mastwork has finally come to life in Bermuda. It’s been quite a remarkable journey over the passed few years to get to this point but finally the veil has been removed and the doublespeak has been brought into the public eye.

The Premiere has ordered his media personnel to severely reduce (read:cease) contact with the Royal Gazette (read: white racists.) The brilliant part of it all is the reason he has given for this order.

This step has been taken in order to prevent a total breakdown of communication between the Premier’s office and these publications.

So, in essence, he has ordered a lack of communication in order to save communication. I love it. The man has just given up and trying to come up with competent lies. Are we really expected to buy into this truckload of bullshit? I mean, who really believes what these people are saying?

Let’s go back and think about when the current government really started striking back, so to speak, at The Royal Gazette. Seems it all started when the newspaper decided that it would run a campaign for the PLP government to pass transparency laws. I don’t see how this is a big deal. I mean, they had been promising to deliver these laws for years now but nothing had been done. Were they so embarrassed by their own sloth that the only way to draw attention away from this matter was to stop advertising in the paper? Sort of reminds you of the child who lives down the street who picks up his ball and goes home because things aren’t going his way.

I wonder what finally brought on this complete collapse of government communication with one of the largest news media organizations on the island. Was it really the “scores of people” who said that Brown should just stop talking to the paper? I somehow doubt this. Dr. Brown might be a lot of things but I don’t think that he’s a stupid man. I just think that he’s a selfish, pig headed, asshole who is only serves his agenda. Forget about what Bermuda needs when he’s around. It’s all about Dr. Brown and what he wants.

I find it laughable that the only time the government has actually listened to the populace has been to make a new holiday in June instead of in October.

Alright, I’m starting to ramble. Let’s wrap this up with a simple notion.

Anyone who actually listens to this nonsense about not talking to save a relationship has probably gone through a few marriages by now and hasn’t learned a damn thing from the divorce

It certainly has been some time since I’ve written a new post on this thing that I suppose could be called a blog. A lot has happened in the passed little while. But I’m not going to bore you with all of the details. What I want to talk about today is the pain of exercise.

I was recently in Toronto and I decided that I would try to pick up a decent squash racquet at a good price. I managed to find a Dunlop Black Max Titanium 510. I have no idea if that’s a good racquet or what but it certainlly does look nice and it had some pictures of good squash players that I’ve heard of before. So for the cost of about $60, I bought it.

In order for you to comprehend my pain today, you must understand a bit of my past. I was fairly athletic when I was younger. I have always been pretty slim. I always played a variety of sports. I was never an all-star but I could hold my own. I played squash in high school. Some of my friends were into tennis so they had some sort of racquet sport experience. Apparently, this didn’t help much since the way you play squash is rather different from tennis. I was smoking a pack a day and still playing sports pretty proficiently.

Fast forward to today. I haven’t really played a sport in years. Not even recreatively have I tried to do anything. I spend most of my time working at a computer whether it be at home or at the office. While I could get away with this before because I was younger and my metabolism was strong, I’ve taken advantage of that too much and now my metabolism has slowed down. I’m not fat but I can see where this is going. I don’t like it. So, I decided that squash would be a good game for me to pick up again. It’s a good work out and I always had fun when I was playing.

Yesterday, after a bit of a delay, I met my friend for a session in the morning. It all felt pretty familiar for the most part until we started actually trying to have rallies. Do you want to talk about missing the ball? How about hitting the ball with the frame instead of the netting? How about every drop shot falling short? Yeah, it was pretty bad. And yet, somehow, my friend was slightly impressed. He told me “that it looks like it’s just dust.” In other words, it’s all still there as far as technique goes. I just need to get my fitness levels up and get accustomed to how to hit the ball properly again.

By the end of our so called “match” I was panting, sweating, and sucking at the teet of the water jug. Today, I’m having some trouble walking. My buttocks in particular seems to be the most sore. I guess I haven’t used those muscles in a very long time. I sitting kind of hurts, let alone trying to stand up or walk. But it’s ok. It’s good pain. I just need to keep on going out there to play. The more I’m out there, the less it’ll hurt afterward and the better I’ll get.

I look forward to being in shape again.